The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guests: Clarence Henderson & Curtis Houck

Episode Date: August 28, 2020

The final night of the RNC left America with a clear choice. Glenn issues an apology to President Trump for misjudging his character in 2016 and takes a look at the true message of his speech last night. Civil rights activist Clarence Henderson compares the current riots to the 1960s movement after a mob surrounded Sen. Rand Paul last night. NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck recaps the MSM meltdown over the RNC and the crowd at the White House. CNN reported that the Kenosha riots were “fiery, but mostly peaceful.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Story Honor. Here's a podcast. You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck program. What do you think of the convention and the speech last night? Loved the speech last night. Yeah. Loved it. And, you know, as soon as I was watching on Fox last night for the first time.

And as soon as the speech ended, Chris Wallace and others started tearing him apart because I guess it wasn't loud enough for them or wasn't rally. I was glad. I was glad. I liked his tone. Yeah. When the audience, they did it once, they're like, woo. I was like, oh, stop that. Stop that.

And I think this was a definite outreach to independence. He's already got the base secure. Oh, my gosh. Okay, so let's show that the independence, that they've got a comfortable place where, you know, he's not insane. He's not out of control. He's not what you think he is.

He's not what you've been told he is. That's for darn sure. And I think he accomplished that really well last night. So I felt really, I was watching, I felt really guilty, really guilty, about one thing in particular. You know, I have no problem speaking out about the president policies and I have no problem saying in 2016, I don't think he's going to do any of those

things because I didn't think he would. He had no record of actually believing any of these things. And I said it and I said at the time, if I'm wrong, I'll admit it. And I have admitted that long ago as he started to fulfill those promises. I was shocked by a lot of them. But last night, All I could think of was when he called me when my dad died. Do you remember what I said afterwards? Said he called me because he had heard my dad died because we had to leave the hotel. I was staying at a Trump hotel. And he talked to me about my dad.

And I hung up the phone and I said, he is running for president. And I attributed the entire phone call to politics. and in watching this week, I think he is, I mean, I think he does not care about what he says about people in person. I mean, you know,

on stage or whatever. He will, he will call you anything and say anything. He does not care. But I think he is publicly like that. And I, I am afraid I have misjudged him. I think,

privately, you know, the thing with Alice Johnson, all of the stories that came out this week from people who were not political, they didn't know Donald Trump. I think one of the most important things about the two conventions was, one, you had a guy in office for 47 years who now says he's going to do these things, and they had a bunch of people say, look, I've known him for a long time, and he's going to do those things, okay? And they're asking you on Biden, trust me, trust me, I know him. The people that were speaking out about Donald Trump were the exact opposite. I didn't know him.

I don't really know him. But look at what he did. And I think it just rang true to me. And I felt so bad about what I said, how I said things in 2016. And I've been feeling this way for a couple of days during this convention. And I just feel like I need to apologize to his children. because I can't imagine. I mean, I just had Donald Trump Jr. on with us.

And I can't imagine he acted like we were old friends. I can't imagine. They didn't have several conversations about me at the dinner table on some of the things that I said. And I really regret it because I do think publicly Twitter and everything else, I think the guy is out of control and doesn't care, doesn't care, enjoys it. But I think privately, he's a different. guy because his children love him and I don't believe like for example Ivanka is a psychopath and how is it Ivanka loves him and all of his children love him as much as they do if he's a psychopath

in real life. He's not. No. He's not. I don't think we ever said he was a psychopath. No, no, no, no, I know. But people think he is because he just doesn't seem like he cares. Yeah. You know, he'll say anything and it looks like he doesn't care. I don't think that's who he is. I don't know that we said anything wrong during the campaign, frankly. We disagreed with him on policy, mostly. And because he, you know, his, his track record was not one of a conservative. And if I would have left it at, if I would have left it at politics, I think I would

have been fine because I've already said, I was wrong. And I said I would say I was wrong. But I really went after his character and he can be targeted with his character. And I think that's fair. But I went after his character personally, and I think I was really wrong on the level of, I think when it's personal and he's involved one on one, one, he does care. Oh, I think he does care. Yeah. Yeah.

And I, that's definitely the messaging, I think, that they wanted to get through. Yeah. And it did. And it worked. And it because it didn't, it felt real. You know, none of this felt staged or phony or not at all. You know, none of it seemed like, okay, we're reaching out to the black people again. It didn't feel that way at all.

No, because it was black people who were saying, look, I love this guy. Right. This guy is going to take us to the next level. The Democrats haven't. Yeah. And like he said last night, I've done more for blacks in three years than Joe Biden's done in 47. Yeah. And it's true by a lot.

It is. It is. I mean, when you saw, I didn't know about the, you know, the funding of the. you know, the black colleges. I didn't, I just didn't know all of the things. Did you watch it from the beginning? Good list of stuff. It was speech?

No, no, no. The whole convention last night? Most of it. I fell asleep at one point. All right. So I started watching it from the beginning and I was just watching the raw AP feed. And so I didn't hear any of the commentary and I saw everything that was on stage. They opened up with a couple of people, both African Americans.

One was like, look, I grew up in really a bad section of town. I never even thought about a Republican. And he now works for the president. And it was so full of joy. It was an amazing testimony. Then this woman in Houston who said, two years ago, I was homeless. Yeah. Did you see that?

Yes. Was that powerful? Very powerful. And the way she ended it and saying, look, don't let anyone tell you, you can't do it. Yeah, she was great. I'm closing on a new house at the end of the month. Yeah. I mean, it was great.

And it was because of one of his programs. Right. And the other thing I thought was great was that montage they did of actual people who have changed from Democrat to Republican. Yeah. And especially the Democratic socialist. Oh my gosh. Who said she's going to vote for Trump this time? That was powerful too.

And the skinny white kid with the big, you know, holes in his ears. Yeah. He is, he would not be pegged as a Republican ever. No. And he was like, you know, I would never voted for a Republican. but I was living in my apartment, I think in New York, and he said, you know, I was talking to this neighbor who is black and I said, you know, what do you do or whatever? And she said, I'm in the system. And he said, I just realized everything that I thought I was for traps people. It just traps them. You know, it was, did you guys see the Richard Grinnell thing? Yes. And it was last night. Yeah. Or excuse me, two nights ago, yeah, where he was basically making the case as Donald Trump is the most pro-gay rights president. ever. And it's interesting.

And we've been talking about that since the beginning. He's always been kind of friendly to gay rights, I think. And the only one to ever be elected in favor of gay marriage. Yeah. But it was a power. It wasn't like they're reaching out to these groups. And like they're not all consistent, you know, like this bashing of the 1994 crime bill, which is a very, very standard thing now that Republicans are doing was something wildly

supported by Republicans at the time, you know, being tough on crime law. it was a law and order bill. And now at the same time, he's making this case for law and order. He's also kind of making the case against the crime bill because Biden voted for it. It's an interesting thing to try to pull off. I think the same thing goes with, you know, they did it with gay voters, I thought, very well. When you outline everything that he has done and has supported over the years, there's a very important, I think successful outreach to gay voters who would not normally consider a Republican.

Well, I think you can talk about it because you are the gay character on the show. I'm like a character, right? This was the most important part that you mentioned to me. But, you know, I think the thing is, is the most important thing is that I don't know anybody who had a problem with any of that stuff. I don't know a single conservative that this was the true representation of the Republican Party. Yeah, didn't anybody say, hey, Richard Grinnell shouldn't be speaking. He's gay.

Nobody said that. The interesting dynamic as a party, just as an observer here, right? is that all the things that he was, that Grinnell was hitting Biden on were things overwhelmingly supported by Republicans at the time. So, but here, they were over like, they were saying like, oh, he was really, you know, Joe Biden was really late to gay marriage.

Okay, so wait a minute, wait a bit. But there's a difference. I understand that as an outreach political tactic. It isn't interesting. Look, parties are. It's different. I think you're missing something. What you're missing is we weren't talking about gay marriage last night.

This convention was not about policies. It was about the human and American heart. We can disagree on policies, but we don't hate each other. Yeah, and that's one thing. I think the bar has been set low for Trump because of how evil he's treated in the media all the time. He's the worst guy ever. He's a racist. He hates gays.

He hates Jews. He hates everybody. So just showing that the guy legitimately cares about people and has empathy for people. and has treated people nicely and has people like Richard Grinnell, who he's supposedly supposed to hate, who he's been elevated to roles never achieved by any gay person in history in the United States, at least outwardly. Right. That is an important message, I think, to get out to people. Yeah.

You know, there is no way you could walk away. If you watch this convention and listened, there is no way you could walk away and say, that is a racist guy, a racist party, a gay bashing, gay hating, you know, homosexual, xenophobic party. There's no way you could walk away. Unless you just didn't believe it.

Which, by the way, a lot of people, you know, you watch the mainstream media reaction to it, and it's just so predictable. You know, they were bringing out like, you know, look, yes, he says this, this and this. But look, I mean, even big reporters were doing it after this. I think that, particularly the one with Grinnell for whatever reason, and really got under the skin of reporters who don't want to lose,

you know, they don't want to lose that ground. They don't want to lose the, we're the pro-gay party crowd. They don't want to lose the, we're the only ones African Americans are allowed to vote for. Those sorts of things are really offensive. Really important. And get really under the skin of not just the Democrats, but the media in general. They knew it. Oh, yeah.

And that's why they did it. Politically effective, I think. I love some of the little shots, the little pocum, pickle forks things that Trump did during the speech last night that you know drove them out of their minds out of their minds you know one of the things that drove them out of their minds and I just I have no problem as a historian you know I hate to say that because I know how the press would react to that but I read a lot of history I've I've you know I go to original documents etc etc so as a quasi historian I was I'm bothered by

the precedence of the backdrop being the White House. This was the first time. And I hope it's the last time. If it was not the era of the pandemic, I would have been screaming bloody murder because I don't like that. However, with that being said, remember, this was his third choice as a backdrop. This is not his first.

This was his third. Democratic City said, no, not here, can't have that, social design, all that. So he's like, okay, I'll do it from where I'm living. You know, it was not his first choice. It wasn't, but then he accentuated it last night just to get under their skin. How many times did he point to the White House to show that he's there? The time that it was like, you talk about a pickle fork, it was a giant pickle that he took when he took that fork out and said, you know what?

They said this, but hey. Look where I live. Yeah. I mean, it was really good. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program. Clarence Henderson, civil rights activist, 1960s, World Worth lunch counter sit-in. Amazing guy. And I just love him.

And it's an honor to have you on the phone again, Clarence. How are you? Good morning, Glenn. Long time. No, C. I know. I know. I have been thinking about you a lot lately.

before the GOP convention because you actually were part of these protests in the 60s that mattered. And I know at the time, there was a real, a lot of people were angry with Martin Luther King because he said, peace, you know, we are going to be peaceful, take the beating.

And there were a lot of people that didn't want to do that. They wanted to fight back. And look where we are now. I mean, this is Malcolm X. if we're lucky what's happening on the street. But it's not usually black people. It seems to be a bunch of white people saying it. They're for black people.

Well, you know, it's amazing, Glenn, because we need to understand that violence begets violence. And we have people who are talking about systemic racism. We have systemic corruption going on in this country. And we need to realize and recognize what's going on. And with all of our imperfections, we are the greatest country in the world, the light that shines on the hill. And I'm hoping that people will reckon with that and find their place in America where they can be successful and help us as a society to be that a place that people can feel like they can come to and have the opportunity at the America offers. And so what they're doing now is that they're taking away.

It's not the idea, it's not to tear down. It's to build up, if it's building, relationships or whatever. In the words of Dr. King, unless we learn to live together, the brother will perish together as food. And I am very concerned that people are caught up in these movements and they don't know what kind of movement it is. For me, there are two kinds of movements. One is the agenda-driven movement where we're being oppressed back to King, Joyce,

the third, and then there's the presby-driven movement where we continually defend about freedom, such as your radio show. continue to do in that and you get ostracized for it, but you continue to go on. And we have to do those kinds of things and to stand up for what is right for ourselves and for our children and grandchildren is coming behind us. So, Clarence, how do you, what would you say to Democrats that are listening to, and I think they know it in their heart, who are listening to the press and to the political leaders saying these are peaceful protest. Some of them may have been during the day at the beginning.

I think there were lots of them. But they degenerated, and it's not even, it's, I don't think this has anything to do with black people anymore. This is all about revolution and anarchy. What do you say to break through to those people that are? It is. And what we have to realize is that we are a country of laws. We have chosen the law ourselves to be governed by the rule of law and that a rule of man.

And so therefore, when these situations come up, we have a judicial system, a court system where we bring these things to the forefront and let it be decided in the court system, not the judicial court system and not the court of public opinion, where we become mob rule and becomes dangerous for everybody. If we're not careful, you have people riding around, everybody saying, I have to take the law unto myself because nobody's going to help me. For example, when you talk about the police, if they're not there, then what happens, especially in your urban communities where I lived in New York back in the 60s in Harlem. And even at that time, when it's different than now, you know, one of the things that people would do when something came up, what do you do? You call the police because you've got people in this country right now that are apprehensive about coming out of their own house. They're not bothering anybody. And I want to participate in any protests or anything like that. They just want to be left alone.

But these people here are jumping on old folks. Whoever gets in their way, I was just in, I'm still in D.C. right now. And I was at the President's acceptance speech. And I saw, I didn't see it, but I ran Paul. They were all around him. We went in a different direction. So we had just got through having acceptance speech, not bothering anybody, but all of a sudden, they want to come in. these people want to come in and destroy it, all these things that we work for in this country.

And it's time, it has to stop at this point. And I fault the powers that be that are not doing anything about it. Because when it turns into violence, then there's an order we have to stop that. And people protest are one thing. But when you change it over to violence, then something has to change. And so I am continuing going across America talking about what we need to do to be. to unite ourselves and not divide ourselves. What's the biggest thing we need to do, Clarence?

What is the, I mean, you lived at a time where, when you stepped up to that lunch counter in Greensboro, what were the possibilities of what was going to happen to you, did you think, at the time? Well, the possibilities was I could have come out of there in a vertical position, going to jail and handcuffs. I could have come out of there in a prone position going to the hospital to the morgue. And I reflected back on it and that the movie's Braveheart, which says every man dies and not every man lials. And so the solution for me is that this thing has to be done by we, the people, and not they, the government. We cannot continue to allow 535 people to tell 320 million plus people they should or should not do.

it is based on we when Thomas Jefferson said that America's an idea in the minds of men people really don't know what that meant he said that America should always go by the choices that we make and it should be done at the polls of the election let us decide what kind of country we want to

live in and we have all these things that people vote for and then we have some elected official or somebody that's appointed that wants to come in and change it for example the definition of marriage in North Carolina 6 or 6% of voters decided that would be based on traditional marriage,

but some judge, I think, was up in Asheville, but it was a case brought before him, and he decided it should not be that. And so we're in this quag right where we're in right now, so as we the people have to come back and start to have meetings, and some of the people are sitting in office right now in the Democratic Party, for example, which is so far removed from reality,

they must be removed, and who even is somebody in the Republican Party, the same thing, they need to be voted out and have people come in and understand For example, I take a guy like itself, non-political, but you know what's going in America. You would, it would be served better by a person like myself or you that really has a handle on what's going in America and really go and serve the people.

So we've got to find those kind of people to devote into our elected system and run and serve this country. And we have to do a better job of vetting our politicians before they get an office. Because politicians, a dime a dozen, but leaders of a price. That's what Donald Trump hears to me. It's roughly human man, but it gets things done. And I feel as though we saw the side of Donald Trump that nobody wants us to see that side that actually privately, I mean, he could say a lot of things on Twitter and say a lot of things in speeches,

but he obviously cares and obviously has made, I mean, the Alice Johnson thing. I mean, the things that he's doing, you don't do unless you actually care, you know, the way he's handled these things. And I thought the GOP convention showed the Republicans or the conservatives for who they really are through actions. You know, this was a unbelievable outreach to the African American community, and it wasn't pandering. Did you feel there was any pandering to anybody at any time in this convention? No, I had a chance last night to beat Vernon Johnson, the guy that's a Democrat out of Georgia that spoke and said he was going to vote for Donald Trump. A tremendous guy that his eyes had opened up to see what the party is doing because I was a Democrat long. I've been a Republican, but when my eyes were opened up, then I knew the direction I needed to go in.

So it was totally sincere to that. People caring about each other, wanting to get something done. It was such a peaceful situation going on there last night. People would stand up sharing. It looked like America. It did. It brought me back to what America is like this week has shown all people that saw it on TV or saw it wherever, have seen what America looks like and what this country has been founded on.

People striving to become successful. People are looking for the opportunity that America offers to this. You see, Glenn, there is a formula for success in America, but most people are concentrating on looking at somebody else comparing rather than competing. And the formula is a free market capitalistic system, of which a lot of Democrats have used, and now they're talking about socialism. You've got Bernie Sanders, how do he is money? I mean, through the free market capitalistic system, but he's espousing socialism, which leads to communism. And that's not the way that this country works. I am so glad to talk to you every time we get a chance to talk.

It has been too long, Clarence. Thank you so much. You're quite welcome, Glenn. I look forward to the next time we meet. You got it. God bless. Clarence Henderson, civil rights activist, the guy in the prominently in the Woolworth lunch counter sit in the pictures that we all grew up with. You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

His name is Curtis Hauk. He's the managing editor of Newsbusters. and I didn't know that he was at 828 until just about five minutes ago. Curtis, welcome to the program. How are you? Good to be with you, Glenn. Again, yeah, it is an honor. And, yeah, 18-year-old Curtis would be absolutely floored if 10 years later to the day, here we are.

That's amazing. How did that affect you? Well, I mean, it was just a culmination of, you know, watching you and reading you for so many years, a lot of the things, you know, about the founders and really what the left has been trying to instill in so many other Americans and trying to do to remake this country, I learned from watching and reading you. And so being able to go to event like that and be with, you know, hundreds of thousands of like-minded conservatives and not even conservatives, people who just love this country and care about the Constitution,

being able to go with my dad and some of his friends. And I mean, it just meant the world to me. Well, Curtis, thank you very much. Thanks for going and thanks for remembering it. It's meaningful. All right, at NewsBusters, you have been watching the meltdowns of the mainstream media. So we want to go over the RNC convention and just get some highlights from you on how bad was the meltdown and what do you think it was the best meltdown from the

mainstream media? Well first I'll say that I think going back to what you've been talked about this morning which is what a contrast it this has allowed us you know really between the DNC the media saying this was Biden's finest hour he was like a preacher at the pulpit he was optimistic holding a fireside chat whereas in contrast Donald Trump had no hope, no hope. It was dark and filled with darkness. He had harsh attacks. It was more of the same.

And he just wants to, quote, own the libs. It was really just absolutely incredible. But my biggest meltdown was actually from before the whole speech happened. MSNBC last night, you know, over the course of two hours leading up to the speech, we're actually saying the president, quote, doesn't care if people, quote, get killed or sick from the coronavirus by attending the colleagues about how the media just empty their thesaurus is. Talk, it's trying to figure out, like, down and describe what they're seeing. But really, this week, they definitely earned it. They're getting, those pages are well loved.

Do you think, Curtis, that there is an awakening beyond the conservatives and Republicans, that there is an awakening on the press, especially over the last two weeks of like, oh, my, I mean, you're in an Alice in Wonderland world. Right. And especially because of the fact that the news media are saying what's going on outside on America's streets is not happening. Right. They're saying that they're mocking the president for saying that there's anarchy in the streets. You know, you have, you know, going back to, yeah, looking at Ferguson what was going on.

You know, this goes to the CNN Chiron. Hopefully people saw this week fiery, but mostly peaceful protests going on. Well, they had to do something. They had to do something. This is the third time there has been burning cars in the back. and they're talking about a peaceful protest. So this time they just, while they're talking about peaceful protest, they just put in the Chiron fiery, but mostly peaceful.

I mean, this is like not the onion, not the Babylon B on overdrive. Like, I mean, it is one of those things that you can, this can't be real. Oh, yes, it's real. I saw a great Babylon B story came out last night that, uh, Babylon B just bought their biggest competitor, CNN. Exactly. Okay, so let me go to the hypocrisy, your favorite hypocrisy moment over an RNC speech. Yeah, and I took a big look at the week, and one of my colleagues over at NewsBusters has been crunching the numbers about how much time MSNBC has been refusing.

to carry the speech. Really, after the news media in totality, carried about 90% of the DNC. So the first night, they skip 33 minutes, night to 37 minutes, night three, you know, with the vice president, 50 minutes. 50 minutes. And we're looking to be well over that,

cross probably closer to an hour, at least for tonight once we finish the numbers today. And they just skipped it entirely, talked over it. Correct. They talked over it. And I think going back to one of your other points from earlier this morning about stories and speakers that humanized the president, you know, Tara Myers talking about her son with Down syndrome, you know, Caleb Mueller's family, Chinese activist Chang Guang Chong. He, all of those speeches were not carried by MSNBC. And it's very intentional. You know, with the media, Sometimes they're kind of, they stumble into their ways, but, you know, in a lot of these instances, they know exactly what they're doing.

This isn't a case of ignorance with the news media, especially this past week. So how is America going to react to this? Do you think enough people that were independent or, you know, Democrat by record, but are kind of sick of this? Do you think enough people saw the real message? Because the real messages, most of them did not come from the politicians. It came from the real people. Yeah, I think that's such a great point. And it's people from all over the country that spoke.

Really, it covered, you know, Tennessee, Minnesota, everywhere in between. And then, yeah, the news media, and I absolutely think it is because you're seeing it in the polling. You know, if you talked about, you know, Black Lives Matter support just cratering. You have seen an admitting that this is showing up and polling. You're seeing the governor of Oregon saying, oh, the violence is bad. Oh, my gosh, we totally condemn all this. And now people are waking up this morning to see that a U.S. senator and his wife

required a barricade of police officers and their bikes to get them to safety. It's like what happened in the 1960s. You know, people turned on their televisions and saw what was going on to peaceful protesters that were marching and sitting at lunch counters. And they're seeing what's going on in these cities. And they're seeing the emotion of these people that have lost everything. And on the other side, you have a news media that's kind of saying, well, they have insurance, you know. Yeah.

I mean, it's just, it's because it's not happening to them that there's just no empathy. They talk about the president not having empathy. Oh, yeah. I mean, it is an Olinskyite, you know, strategy of projecting onto your opponents kind of where you are. Yeah. Curtis Halk, managing editor of NewsBusters. What a great, what a great day to talk to you, Curtis, on the anniversary of 828. Thank you so much.